Alfred Lewis Vail (September 25, 1807 – January 18, 1859) was an American

machinist A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...

and inventor. Along with

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

, Vail was central in developing and commercializing American

telegraphy Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

between 1837 and 1844. Vail and Morse were the first two telegraph operators on Morse's first experimental line between Washington, D.C., and

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

, and Vail took charge of building and managing several early telegraph lines between 1845 and 1848. He was also responsible for several technical innovations of Morse's system, particularly the sending key and improved recording registers and

relay A relay Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off A relay is an electrically operated switch ...

magnets. Vail left the telegraph industry in 1848 because he believed that the managers of Morse's lines did not fully value his contributions. His last assignment, superintendent of the Washington and New Orleans Telegraph Company, paid him only $900 a year, leading Vail to write to Morse, : "I have made up my mind to leave the Telegraph to take care of itself, since it cannot take care of me. I shall, in a few months, leave Washington for New Jersey, ... and bid ''adieu'' to the subject of the Telegraph for some more profitable business."

Early life

Vail's parents were Bethiah Youngs (1778–1847) and Stephen Vail (1780–1864). Vail was born in

Morristown, New Jersey Morristown () is a town and the county seat of Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Speedwell Ironworks into one of the most innovative iron works of its time. Their other son George Vail, Alfred's brother, was a noted politician. Alfred attended public schools before taking a job as a

at the iron works. He enrolled in

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

to study theology in 1832, where he was an active and successful student and a member of the Eucleian Society, graduating in 1836.

Involvement with Morse's telegraph

Visiting his alma mater on September 2, 1837, Vail happened to witness one of

's early telegraph experiments. He became fascinated by the technology and negotiated an arrangement with Morse to develop the technology at Speedwell Ironworks, at his own expense, in return for 25% of the proceeds. Alfred split his share with his brother George Vail. After having secured his father's financial backing, and being a skilled machinist, Vail refined Morse's crude prototype telegraph to make it suitable for public demonstration and commercial operation. The first successful completion of a transmission with this system was at the Speedwell Iron Works on January 6, 1838, across two miles (3 km) of wire. The message read "A patient waiter is no loser." Over the next few months Morse and Vail demonstrated the telegraph to Philadelphia's

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

, members of Congress, and President

Martin Van Buren Martin Van Buren ( ; nl, Maarten van Buren; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he ...

and his cabinet. Demonstrations such as these were crucial to Morse's obtaining a Congressional appropriation of $30,000 to build his first line in 1844 from Washington to Baltimore.

Retirement from telegraphy

When Morse took on an influential congressman as a partner, Morse cut the Vail brothers' share to one-eighth, although the other partners' shares were not reduced. Morse retained patent rights to all the apparatus and the alphabetic code-system that Vail had developed. Vail retired from the telegraph operations in 1848 and moved back to Morristown, where he spent his last ten years researching

genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...

. Since Alfred and his brother George shared a one-eighth interest in Morse's telegraph patents, Vail realized far less financial gain from his work on the telegraph than Morse and others. His papers and equipment were subsequently donated by his son Stephen to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

and New Jersey Historical Society. Alfred Vail's cousin, Theodore N. Vail, became the first president of

American Telephone & Telegraph AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

Morse code

Alfred Vail and Samuel Morse collaborated in the invention of

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one ...

. The "

" that went into operational use after Vail had become involved was very different from Morse's original plan. A controversy exists over the role of each in the invention. The argument for Vail being the original inventor is laid out by several scholars. The argument offered by supporters of Morse claims that Morse originally devised a cipher code similar to that used in existing

semaphore line An optical telegraph is a line of stations, typically towers, for the purpose of conveying textual information by means of visual signals. There are two main types of such systems; the semaphore telegraph which uses pivoted indicator arms and ...

telegraphs, by which words were assigned three- or four-digit numbers and entered into a code book. The sending operator converted words to these number groups and the receiving operator converted them back to words through the same code book. Morse spent several months compiling this code dictionary. It is said by Morse supporters that Vail, in public and private writings, never claimed the code for himself. According to one researcher, in a February 1838 letter to his father, Judge Stephen Vail, Alfred wrote, : "Professor Morse has invented a new plan of an alphabet, and has thrown aside the Dictionaries." In an 1845 book Vail wrote describing Morse's telegraph, he also attributed the code to Morse.

Honors

A U.S. Army base was named in Vail's honor: "Camp Vail" in

Eatontown Eatontown is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 Census, the borough's population was 12,709,Fort Monmouth Fort Monmouth is a former installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The post is surrounded by the communities of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, New Jersey, and is located about from the Atlantic Ocean. T ...

, it was an Army housing complex. After World War II the families of servicemen and civilian Army employees negotiated with the Army to purchase the development, which they incorporated as the "Alfred Vail Mutual Association". Due to the diligent efforts of the town clerk, the rights of the charter of the original Shrewsbury Township (est. 1693) were transferred to the residents. The housing development exists under that name to this day. An elementary school in

Morristown, New Jersey Morristown () is a town and the county seat of Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

Footnotes

References

External links

Morse Telegraph Club, Inc.
(The Morse Telegraph Club is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the perpetuation of the knowledge and traditions of telegraphy.)

Profile of Alfred Vail (Manuscript Group 50, Alfred Vail Papers, The New Jersey Historical Society)

the

Smithsonian Institution Archives Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Instituti ...

"A Forgotten History: Alfred Vail and Samuel Morse"
also from the Smithsonian Institution Archives * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vail, Alfred 1807 births 1859 deaths 19th-century American inventors Creators of writing systems Morse code People from Morristown, New Jersey Vail family New York University alumni Inventors from New Jersey